


The Things that Make Us Feel Like We have It All

by Sei_Bellissima



Category: SteamWorld Dig (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, I might change it later, Idk what I'm doing with the title, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Platonic Soulmates, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 03:25:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17480300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sei_Bellissima/pseuds/Sei_Bellissima
Summary: "I know there are long nights, but we'll make it."A collection of oneshots revolving around the dynamic of Rusty and Dorothy. Will be anything from angst to fluff, from Tumblr prompts to random ideas I came up with one day. Details will be in the notes of each chapter.





	1. Tickle Fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "sbuggbot said: Dig Duo in a tickle fight!"
> 
> Takes place after Dig 2.
> 
> Originally posted to Tumblr here: <http://sw-seibellissima.tumblr.com/post/180503072455/dig-duo-in-a-tickle-fight>

The first few minutes of Rusty’s day were a fuzzy haze. He remembered having some sort of dream about clouds and pillow and something called “marshmallows.” He would’ve liked to go back to sleep, but he knew he had overslept and should get up for the day.

Upon discovering that Dorothy wasn’t in bed – or in the bedroom, for that matter – he grabbed his hat and shuffled to the kitchenette, hoping to see her nursing a heated mug of water. Instead, he found a neatly written note, signed off with a little heart.

_Discovered we’re out of coal. Went to town to get some._

— _Dot_

Rusty shook his head; that couldn’t be right—he just went out to get coal yesterday. He came back with bucketfuls, in fact: enough to last them for the next week. Was he going crazy?

Now that he was questioning himself, Rusty was compelled to go and check the coal stash, much to his chagrin. His morning sweetened water would have to wait.

Mumbling to himself, Rusty opened the door to the storage room, his eyes illuminating the dark inside. Among his pickaxe and a few odd rocks here and there, he found a relieving amount of coal piled in the corner, reaching halfway up the wall.

Rusty cocked his head to the side. Clearly they had enough coal, so why did Dot go out to—

“SURPRISE!”

Something lunged at him from the dark, pinning him to the ground. His vision was a messy blur of turquoise and red as little metal fingers started scrabbling the area under his arms. He erupted into rapturous laughter as he desperately tried to bat the offender away.

Eventually he managed to get the hunk of metal off himself and he immediately got to his feet, backing up and smiling playfully at his best friend. “I was wonderin’ why ya disappeared,” he said as he got into a tickle-fight ready position, wiggling his fingers readily.

Dot giggled, her laughter almost contagious. “You’ve seemed down for the past few days. Thought you could use this.” She rubbed her hands together, faceplates forming a devilish grin—yet a hint of playfulness leaking into her features.

The two bots circled each other for a bit, watching for an opening all while trying to hold back their restless laughter. Ultimately, it was Rusty who lunged first.

Dorothy tried to leap to the side, aiming to circle around him and go for his shoulders. Unfortunately he caught her by the hand and whipped her to the floor, pinning her legs with his own and quickly rubbing her tummy, careful to avoid the opening to her furnace. Her howling laughs rose into the air, so loud that Rusty had the urge to cover his auditors. Sadly, his hands were occupied at the moment!

Dorothy got the idea to steal his hat, easily plucking it from his head. On instinct, Rusty’s hands flew to his bald head, freeing Dot from her ticklish clutches so she could wriggle out from underneath him. She leaped to the side, waving his hat at him tauntingly while trying to catch her breath.

“Come and get it, cowboy!” she teased, eyes as bright as the fire in her belly.

Rusty made some sort of noise that sounded like a mix of a squeal and a growl, lunging for his hat—and falling for Dot’s trick. She grabbed him by the shoulder, but Rusty was tough: he wriggled and thrashed in her grasp, forcing her to cast his hat to the wayside so she could decommission him with both hands. In her attempts, they staggered across the room, Dorothy turning him around at the last minute so he’d bump into the wall.

He thumped into it with a grunt, and Dorothy squeezed his shoulders, earning herself a hysterical belly laugh. She smiled; he was just like a rubber duck!

Again and again she compressed his shoulders, occasionally mixing in a tickle or so on his upper body. She wouldn’t let up until Rusty was gasping for air, begging for his friend to stop. She complied with a giggle, letting him slump to the floor, his head laying back against the wall. Panting, he nodded, giving her a grateful look. “Thanks Dot; I did need that. S’been a rough couple o’ days.”

“No, thank you! That was the most fun I’ve had in a while,” she said, offering her hand to help him up. He accepted it, exchanging smiles with her. “Y’shoulda seen the look on your face when I sprung out of the closet and got ya!”

Rusty giggled, “Yeah, but did you hear yerself when I got to yer stomach? I don’t even know if that counted as a laugh, it was so loud.”

Again they descended into hysterics, laughing so hard that their chassis started to ache and they had to sit down. Eventually they caught their breath (again) and let out content sighs in unison. They were left in deafening silence, staring at each other’s goofy faces—just enjoying each other’s company.

“…Can I have my hat back?”


	2. Nightmare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "dashing-hyphen said: Dot helping Rusty through a meltdown?"
> 
> Takes place after Dig 2. Spoiler alert!
> 
> Originally posted on Tumblr here: <http://sw-seibellissima.tumblr.com/post/180657255760/dot-helping-rusty-through-a-meltdown>

Rusty was down in the mines. Clink, clink, clink went his pickaxe as he bore through the rock, collecting any gemstones he found along the way. The light of his lantern was starting to grow dim, but he pressed on, sensing that he was encroaching upon something good.

The dirt crumbled under his boots, before falling apart. With no foothold he was sent spiraling downwards through the chilly air. Eventually he landed in a massive lake. He tried to swim upwards, but something was clawing at him, pulling him down with every stroke of his arm. He sunk deeper, the darkness surrounding him before he suddenly surfaced again, finding a familiar face.

“Joe?”

This Steambot did not turn out to be the one Rusty knew and loved growing up. Slowly, his body transfigured, pipes turning into wires and the warm copper into chilling steel. His optics formed into one giant eye and the rest of his body changed in a similar, grotesque manner that made Rusty feel very sick. Now in his Voltbot form, Joe screeched and grabbed Rusty out of the water, flinging him to the hard ground where he skidded for what felt like forever, leaving a long trail of upturned dirt behind him. He wasn’t given a chance to get up again, as the Voltbot curled his icy fingers around Rusty’s limp form, then grabbing him by his pipe and dangling him in the air. Rusty thrashed and kicked in its grasp, trying as hard as he could to escape.

Sadly, it was not meant to be.

The Voltbot stuck him into a cramped space, where he was then restrained by his wrists and ankles. It backed up and watched from afar off as another face came into view—one Rusty knew too well.

She walked up to him with a devilish grin, already powering up one of her dreaded tools of torture. “She doesn’t suspect a thing, love. Let’s pick up from where we left off.”

He wanted to say, no, don’t call me that, but he found his throat tight and useless. He couldn’t do anything as she inched closer, her sound of her tool whirring on continuously growing in volume. His body was filled with searing pain as it finally made contact, and he so desperately wanted to scream, to make it all go away, but no amount of thrashing and swaying could get him out of this.

He might as well be dead.

* * *

“Rusty! Rusty, You’re here with me, safe and sound, snap out of it!”

Rusty bolted up with a pained gasp, his chassis creaking as he shivered violently. His vision was a blur of colors, too bright and colorful for him to handle at a moment. He shook his head so harshly Dorothy knew that he would loosen something in there if he kept doing it. She needed to get his attention.

Carefully, she took his hands – which were curled into tight, tense fists – and squeezed them gently with her own. “Rusty. Rusty! Listen to me!”

He finally seemed to hear her, as he stopped whipping his head around and looked straight at her—and Dot’s heart instantly broke at seeing the tears, and the genuine fear in his photoreceptors.

After taking a shaky breath, she reassured him. “It’s okay. You’re not… down there. You’re at home, safe and with me.” She tried her hardest not to show it, but she was scared too. The way he was screaming in his sleep was unreal—and she knew right then and there that he was having a nightmare about whatever he had gone through while he was missing. He had nightmares like that in the past, but this was the worst reaction she had seen out of him thus far.

Rusty lunged at his best friend, burying his face into her chassis. He hiccuped and shook like a leaf, choking down sobs. In response Dorothy wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, knowing he was alleviated by touch in his meltdowns. “It’s okay… don’t fight it. Let yourself feel.”

She didn’t stop him from shuffling closer up to her, nor did she prevent him from squeezing her shoulders tightly. He descended into loud, heartbreaking wails, as he tried to force away the images racing through his head. Dorothy frowned, but didn’t stop him, as this was this biggest cry he had in a long while—he had probably kept it bottled up as always, which was unhealthy of him, but it was a habit of his he couldn’t seem to break.

Dorothy couldn’t blame him. She had developed a tendency of hiding away her feelings too, especially when Rusty had gone missing, and while in her case it wasn’t as extreme as his, she knew very well what he was going through right now.

So she let Rusty cry, cry all the pain, the fear, the loneliness away, mumbling words of comfort and gingerly rubbing his back all the while. Some time in the process he had lost the strength to hold onto her shoulders from shaking so much and had sunk into her lap, weakly gripping her thigh. Dorothy didn’t let his change of position stop her from comforting him, as she switched from rubbing his back to stroking over the top to the back of his head, her gentle touch making him sleepier than he already was.

Rusty did a sleepy sigh as he wiped the last of his tears away, content to just snuggle up to Dot and sleep the day away. After all of that happened, he didn’t really feel like doing anything today. And Dorothy agreed; she was feeling pretty tired herself, considering Rusty woke her up with a scare. Now that they had both calmed down she was taking on the full effects of the adrenaline leaving her body.

She stretched her arms in the air, working the knots out of her back. “I’ll call in and tell ‘em we won’t be workin’ today,” she mumbled. With a grunt she willed herself to get out of bed and put the kettle on, knowing that they had both probably gone through a lot of water just now. A thought popped into her head, and with a smile, she peeked back into the bedroom. “Wanna share some ice cream with me, Rusty? I know we don’t really eat but I could sure use a sweet treat right about now.”

In spite of himself, Rusty couldn’t say no.

And as the light of The Core filtered through the window, the two of them taking in the beauty of the morning, enjoying their “breakfast: and each others’ company—Rusty knew he would be okay, no matter what.


End file.
